Quoted in WAMU 88.5 segment by Armando Trull on 6 October

To read or listen to the entire piece, “Voices from El Salvador: Gang Violence Driving Youth Exodus,” here is the link: http://wamu.org/news/14/10/06/voices_from_el_salvador_gang_violence_driving_youth_exodus .

“Most kids have seen crimes committed, whether it’s murder, rape, most know someone who’s been disappeared,” says Elizabeth Kennedy, a Fulbright scholar. She’s interviewed more than 600 Salvadoran youth who fled the country, but were deported from Mexico before they could reach the US. Nearly 60 percent told her they were fleeing gang violence.

“They’re afraid, especially for youth that are from poorer neighborhoods; the gangs are often the most present agents in their lives,” she says.

…

Fulbright researcher Kennedy has interviewed many young crime victims.

“But when we asked them if they had made a report to the police, they said no,” Kennedy says. “And in most cases we asked them why, and the typical responses we receive are ‘the police and the gangs are the same.’ You don’t know who’s who, but if you did that, your problems would really begin.”